Local Blogs

By Tim Hunt

The personal touch

Uploaded: Mar 27, 2014

The city of Dublin and BART will come together Monday to honor the city's first mayor, Pete Snyder.
Pete moved to Lincoln east of Sacramento a several years ago and will be back in town for the ceremony.
He sent me a copy of the invitation--a classic case of a form letter run through a mail merge program.
It was addressed to Pete at his Lincoln home; and read:
"Re: Invitation to Pete Snyder Plaza Dedication, March 31, 2014.
Dear Pete Snyder
In honor of the City's first Mayor and former BART Board of Directors President, Pete Snyder, I, on behalf of the Dublin City Council, would like to invite you to attend the Pete Snyder Plaza Dedication at the Dublin/Pleasanton BART Station on Monday, March 31, 2014 at 9 A.M."
It was signed by Dublin Mayor and assembly candidate Tim Sbranti.
It's great to see Pete honoredhe played a significant role in getting the 2nd BART station in the valley and ensuring that the extension was completed after former director Erlene DeMarcus pushed it ahead aggressively during her term.

Flying to Las Vegas on business earlier this month, twice I was able to go through the screening line that did not require any of the nuisances that goes with the typical line. We were at Oakland so absurdly early on the Sunday that daylight savings changed (0:600) that there were a handful of people going through security.
It was much different coming back from Las Vegas at a slightly more civilized 7 a.m. on a Friday. There were already plenty of people at the airport and my boarding pass sent me to the speed line.
Unfortunately, people in that line could not read and went through the normal routine of removing shoes, belts, change, etc.. That irritated the bureaucratic woman working the line who insisted they put everything back before running their luggage through the scanner.
The resultmy partner, who was enduring the regular linegot through almost as quickly as I did in the speed lane.

It's great to see that the TSA is finally re-evaluating the effectiveness and inconvenience of the system that was put in place after 9-11. Clearly, they've done a good job of communicating that what they thought is necessary for safe travel and people have adjusted well to it.